Officials of La Pointe Iron Co., one of the owners of the property that Gogebic Taconite unsuccessfully sought to develop as a massive open pit mine, met with local representatives in Hurley to discuss reviving mining plans.

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The cost to employers of providing health benefits increased at the lowest rate in 15 years, rising 4.5% in the Milwaukee area and 4.1% nationally this year, according to an annual survey by Mercer, a benefits consulting company. »Read Full Article

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America's worldwide ranking regarding health care indicates that we have a system that clearly does not work for Americans. Works great for the insurance industry which collects money for brokering the service between customers and care givers adding nothing to actual care except costs. America ranks 50th in the world for life expectancy! Considering how much is spent on healthcare here we are extremely ineffective.

It is interesting how lefites love to play politics for votes,YET, the president,Congress,Senate and a select few thousand of Obama's friends got waivers from Obamacare and or are exempt from the law.SO explain how we can insure MORE,insure Preexisting conditions and lower cost again?

Cubcake,,,you mean those death panels that dont exist and is a lie..next to other classic blasts like, if you like your Dr,you can keep him, or we are not looking for a 1 payer system,,,,,or Obamacare will cost under 1T dollars,OR No one making under 250K will see their taxes go up,not 1 dime!

The cost to employers should be going down, with the predominance of high deductible plans out there. Our health plan has not paid a dime for at least 3 years, since everything is out of our pocket. The only employer cost is the cost of whatever premium contribution they pay to have the plan administered. We strongly suspect that the last round of layoffs included those with high health care costs, and that would not be illogical. Next thing coming down the pike is premiums based on your biometrics (blood pressure, BMI, lipid and sugar levels.) They already charge smokers extra.

Years ago, most employees with health insurance had what was called "major medical" through Blue Cross. That meant nothing was covered other than hospital bills. The current environment is returning to that scenario. Unfortunately, the cost for preventive health care and office visits for acute illnesses are much higher priced than in the past, which gives patients pause before they make an appointment.

Let's review coverage: medical devices will be taxed. That includes tampons. Medical device makers are closing, innovation is stopped.

Those who do not contribute enough to society will be denied care, with no recourse. Who is on the chopping block? All children with major diseases - we haven't invested enough in them to "justify" the cost. Most "rare" diseases because theyr'e too expensive to treat.

Cancer treatment for the elderly. Mammograms for women in their 40's (it's a level D test, thus it's behind the A,B, C tests).

We could go the single-payer route, basically Medicare for everyone. But we'd have to get used to paying less for our health care and getting better results -- and facing the grim prospect of lower administrative costs. Not sure America is ready for such pain and suffering.

Oh yeah, and 6 month waits for doctors. The results will NOT be better. Administrative costs of actual law are 20 times higher than the CBO estimate (based on bogus inputs). That's 1.8 Trillion / year.

Not to dispute your research, but the costs of single-payer are lower in the far majority of the countries where it used -- with better results across all diseases. But if you LOVE insurance companies, you are most definitely in the right country. Oh, and by the way, you'll wait 6 months for things like liposuction.

Countries with 20M people,maybe,but in a country with over 330M,it wont work. nd its proven that Cancer survival rates are higher in America.They ( other countries ) have better lifestyles but once sick America is by far the best country to be treated and unf. folks who take care of themselves do get sick

WG- My wife was diagnosed with cancer while we were living in our northern wisc home during Sept of this year. We immediately traveled to Froedert Cancer Cntr and she had an appointment with an oncologist as well as with a surgeon in 2 days. She now receives chemo treatments on a regular basis. Chemo treatments began already in late Sept.

I'm not posting you to argue any points. I'm simply pointing out where your friend can receive immediate treatment. Good luck to them and best wishes.

That's funny butternut . Unfortunately it happens all too often. A woman I know was in a car accident and lost feeling in both legs - she waited for 3 days to get an MRI of her neck. It was broken. Her daughter (here in the states) was frantic because she couldn't get her moved (too risky) and couldn't get her treated.

How can Obamacare 'work' if it hasn't been implemented? It'll "work" by putting more people on govt insurance, which will cost taxpayers more, which was the democrats intention. 'Forced dependency' is a nice word for it. Then they can chide you for not voting yourself more govt goodies if you don't vote democrat. Works with SS and Medicare.

Cub -- You're a math guy. Wouldn't you agree that eliminating the middle-man would save significant costs? You know, getting rid of insurance companies, who obviously will take their share. I understand you may have problems with single-payer for other reasons, but can you really dispute the cost savings of a single-payer system? And if you want to compare administrative costs (Medicare vs. private insurance), Medicare wins. Always has. I don't have a link, and I apologize for that, but it's been well documented -- and not by the "liberal" press.

First off, I'm not a guy. Secondly, I have years of working within the insurance industry and have first hand experience with the ridiculous rules put on insurance companies. We had an entire division working to make sure that each policy was filed in the appropriate states and then cross filed in each reciprocal state.

Medicare "wins" because they have their own rules - one set. Not 52. (Yes, I'm counting DC & PR). Each state has their own insurance division and each policy has to be modified to match that state. That's roughly 30 versons of each policy (there are reciprocal states).

There are so many inefficiencies that could be cleaned up - but that's not what Obamacare does. It WANTS to take over 1/6th of the economy, leading us to more and more government control.

I didn't work in Health. And I don't work there now. A wise person would learn from someone who has seen the inner workings, has identified inefficiencies and corrected them, and can shed a little light on the subject.

Or you can stick to your ideology and I'll stop confusing you with facts.

Sorry attic, Obama lies and the left buys it. Blame whoever. Most of them are blind partisans and don't have any idea if Obamacare will work. They just parrot msnbc and think that everyone that doesn't agree with them is somehow a fan of Fox News.

Health care cost for employers increase at 4.5% is growing at a lower rate than it has in the past but it is still growing at a higher rate than inflation.Conversely health care costs are increasing at a much higher rate for workers as they pay more of the costs and face higher deductables.Whats your guess on who is profiting big time on this scenario?Affordable health insurance is looking like it could be a big part of the answer!